Breathe
by TimelessTears
Summary: As he walks through life, he forgets how to breathe


**Disclaimer: I don't own D. Gray-Man**

She flits through his earliest memories like a wandering ghost. A flash of blue and stroke of mahogany brown share room with a blurred face. She was warm, he thinks vaguely. Warm. Bright. Happy. But always with a sense of hesitation; as if she wasn't completely free. There is another like her, only he is dull and full of anger. A monochromatic figure that always filled him with dread. Their faces are gone but he's pretty sure they were his parents. There were daily arguments between them centered around him. The man wanted him gone, but she refused every time. She would not cast her son away.

No matter how deformed his arm was.

He thinks he flinched a lot as a child because all the hurt and bitterness came about over what to do with him. It saddened him that he was the reason for his parents unhappiness when he should have been their pride and joy. So he tried his hardest to correct that.

He tried to be good.

He smiled and helped her in the kitchen.

He was quiet and did everything his father asked of him no matter how degrading.

But it wasn't enough.

On a cold, lifeless day, the woman he thinks is his mother goes to sleep and doesn't wake up.

. . . .and suddenly, love doesn't exist anymore.

Suddenly, he is thrown into a cold substance. Snow, perhaps?

Suddenly, the man he thought was his father died, though he was still breathing.

Suddenly, he lost his home even though it was still standing.

He doesn't even bother to beg to be let back in; he knows he'd be denied.

He wanders for a few hours and finds a tiny, beat-down church to stay in. The priest was old and kind. He could hardly see and Allen took advantage of that weakness.

"Child," he recalled the priest saying even to this day, "God forgives all sins."

Does he? The child wondered in silence, because he's almost certain he was a sin; but he's not sure. So he thinks and thinks and thinks.

. . .and slurred words from a partial memory help remind him that he was a monster, not a sin. Courtesy of his father. He tells this to the priest. The priest in turn, sighs sadly, pats his head in sympathy, and tells him he's not a monster. Even if he was, God would forgive him because God can forgive anything when asked.

That Sunday, as he runs from the mob of church goers who can see clearly, it dawns of him the while God can forgive all sins, humans cannot.

He lives on the streets for a few years with the vermin as his friends, and learns how to live when he realizes living is impossible.

Stealing an oversized mitten helped immensely.

He'd sit by overflowing trash cans and watch the rats for hours. Amazing, he would think as he watched them scourer for food. Amazing how something so small could bring about so much hatred. Like me, he thinks sadly, hugging his knees to his chest. So the homeless, loveless, monster found kin in the vermin; but in his observations, he forgot one thing: they didn't just bring hatred.

They could bring an entire nation to its knees.

It's here that he stops breathing but his heart keeps beating.

He doesn't recall exactly how he ended up in the circus but he admits it's better than where he had been before. However, the people made him uneasy. They called themselves freaks but he knew it wasn't true. The 'Beared Lady' could take her facial hair off at anytime and the 'Blue Man' always had perfect peach skin after a bathing. Still, when he caught glimpses of them performing-watching the crowd cheer for more and _love_ them, it lured him into a sense fake comfort, thinking there were others like him and that he could be accepted.

But after the shows, when he brings the performers their dinner, he hears their whispers of disgust when his back is turned and sees only twisted smiles and listens to fake 'thank you's', when his tired world-weary eyes take in their stony ones.

This is where Allen learns what 'two-faced liar' really meant. Hypocrisy would be the more technical term.

It's also where he became bitter and stopped giving a damn.

He shut his heart off from the world. He freely let his scarlet arm be seen by all and when he catches them looking, he calls them on it.

Seven words:

"What the hell are you looking at?"

So he grew content being a rude little shit. Sure he got beat up a few times for having a smart mouth, but for the first time in years he felt something more than emptiness and sorrow. The dam that had retained his anger so well finally broke after his resentment overflowed. By now it'd had been years since he stopped breathing the breathe of life.

He swears up and down that he most likely would have ended up killing someone of being killed himself; but then _he_ came.

The new comer.

It wasn't the new comer that had cooled Allen's temper. Human beings no longer interested the monster. It was his companion, the dog, that so successfully captured his attention.

For the first time in a long while, someone willing touched his cursed arm without inflicting pain. Each day his anger would ebb away a little at a time, as he stroked the dogs fur. He was still distrustful, still a cynic, but he wasn't causing a ruckus anymore and he wasn't looking for fight to unleash his frustration. He began to take in little puffs of life and it eased the tightness in his chest. Unfortunately, when a monster finds something good come into its life, it doesn't last long.

Yeah, the dog died.

He tried to pretend it didn't affect him as the man buried his first- _only_- friend. He's just about ready to close his heart off again-it was a mistake to reopen it in the first place-but the new comer distracts him and even comforts him.

Before he even understands it himself, the acceptance and love he'd been craving for all his life was given to him by this one man. It's no surprise he left with Mana when the man moved to perform at the next circus. Allen even brought out his old mitten just so Mana didn't have to be embarrassed by him. The man he looks up to as a father just smiles sadly and tells him he'd never be ashamed by Allen.

And survival turned back into living somewhere after trust was restore in a torn little heart.

But he made a mistake.

He had a clear view of the world but he was still a child. He thought it would last forever; this happiness. He felt like things were looking up for the first time since. . .ever.

His mistake?

Simple. He forgot he was a monster and no monster is allowed a good life, remember?

If he didn't remember then, it reinforced itself when he looked at the pale corpse of his father. The emptiness and sadness came back full force after the shock wore off. His breath was taken from him. Honestly, he didn't know whether to laugh or cry at his terrible luck. It couldn't get worse than this, he thought as he let his tears flow down his thin face.

Oh, but it could.

He fully admits it was greedy of him to want Mana back so bad. It was greed that led the Earl to him and it was greed that led him to saying yes to that terrible offer. It was only after the deal was sealed that he learned how deeply it would cost him.

A screaming dysfunctional machine gives him a nice cursed eye as a departing gift, and he learns all those nameless people were right to label him a monster when his hand suddenly becomes an oversized white claw.

It broke his heart that he killed the only one who ever loves him.

So there he is, sitting pitifully against the gravestone, vaguely wondering what he should do but mostly still in despair, when fate intervenes. For the first time in his life, Allen Walker finally got some questions answered and it was about damn time. Unfortunately, Marion Cross wasn't the type of person to give answers without wanting something in return so Allen spends the next three years in hell.

He finds irony in the fact that, even though he was called a monster, he was actually going to end up being more of a secret guardian angel.

He honestly doesn't hate his Master. The man's training regime and constant gambling expenses kept Allen's mind too busy to think about more depressing things. He's also grateful that the man didn't try to have some sort of emotional attachment to his apprentice. Allen wasn't ready to go down that road again.

And Cross was an ass of epic proportions. It just wouldn't have worked out.

So it's a relief when the drunkard deemed him good enough to go to headquarters after three years of shenanigans. While Allen didn't appreciate the hammer to the head, he's extremely glad he doesn't have to pay off gambling debts anymore. Cross may have taught him many important lessons but Allen wasn't thrilled at cleaning up after the man.

The Black Order, he finds out, is full of crazy, paranoid bastards. He's been accused of many things but an akuma was a new one. So was a swordsman coming out of nowhere and attacking without provocation. Honestly, anger-management was sorely needed here. It's ok though, he's a forgiving soul (kinda) so it's all cool.

Then he gets told he's the prophesied 'Destroyer of Time.' It's not all cool anymore. Seriously? Why him, of all people? Someone up there had it in for him, he just knew it. Still, he meant so many new people at HQ who were all so open and friendly. Honestly it weirded him out and it was with great hesitance hidden behind some fake confidence that he manged respond back politely as possible. Time passed by so quickly, that it wasn't until they're forced to move to a new headquarters that he realizes that he has real friends. The passing thought made his heart drop into his gut because he knew something bad would happen sooner or later.

So he's not near as surprised as he should be when he gets accused of treason. What surprises him is the _reason_ he's been accused.

Apparently, somewhere down the road, a bloody Noah got into his system and no one bothered to tell him. How rude.

His heart stops beating for a moment when his stupid teacher explains Mana's part in all of this._ I knew it was too good to be true; that shitty bastard_, the rude little monster that he used to be, whispered in the back of his mind and Allen clenches his fist, because he feels compelled to agree for once. As he's being escorted out, the rat in him comes out as he tries to figure out how to get out of this mess. So far, these are his options:

1. Leave and hope they don't find him (they would; he just knew they'd find a way).

2. Let the Noah take over (Uh, no. It's HIS body thank-you very much).

3. Join the Earl (Again, no. Far too many people over there willing to rape him. . .).

4. Just go with the flow (Seems like the best bet for now).

So just as he makes up his mind to focus more on survival than living, he has to unmake that decision at the sight of his friends anxious faces.

Damn Mana Walker for teaching Allen to breath again, and damn his friends for becoming his reason to keep breathing.

He had no idea it would hurt this much to feel so alive.

But damn if he didn't love every minute of it.


End file.
